


along for the ride

by the_hodag



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst and Humor, Banter, Canon Compliant, David should've read the winter preparedness guide, Future Fic, Gen, Halloween Costumes, M/M, Mildly Entertaining Top Ten Lists, Post-Canon, Road Trips, david and his complex emotions, discussions of death but no character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27771982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_hodag/pseuds/the_hodag
Summary: Unraveling someone else's grief can be complicated when they refuse to engage in anything more than idle road trip banter.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 28
Kudos: 114
Collections: Schitt's Creek: Frozen Over (2020)





	along for the ride

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SCFrozenOver2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SCFrozenOver2020) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
>  David hears someone he once cared about has died on Thanksgiving morning. Patrick is determined to make him know the meaning of 'family' and 'Thankful' before he leaves for the funeral the next day.
> 
>  **Note:**  
>  This fic deviates from the original prompt significantly. Importantly, there is no mention of Thanksgiving whatsoever in this fic. (I’m firmly on the “Schitt’s Creek is in Canada” camp, and their Thanksgiving is in October, so...) As such, there isn’t a big focus on “family” and “thankfulness” like the prompter suggested. 
> 
> But I took the idea of David losing someone from his past and went on a road trip with it. I hope the prompter can find it in their heart to forgive me.
> 
>  **Another note:**  
>  There are definitely references to death and funerals in this fic, but I tried to reign it in and relate the conflict to David and Patrick as individuals. The deceased person in question has only ever been an unnamed mention on the show and isn’t the primary focus of the story.

Rows of leafless aspen disappear in the rearview mirror, but Patrick’s eyes are fixed on the horizon. A car passes over the hill from the other direction, the first he’s seen since the gas station a few miles back. It disappears alongside the trees, and Patrick is left with the open road. 

Was this a fight? Were they fighting? Admittedly, Patrick’s knowledge of what constitutes a fight with David exists within the limited range of surprise ex-fiancées and mortifying spray tans, but still. No major conflict had arisen in the three months of their marriage, so he assumed the honeymoon period was in full swing. But this...felt like a fight. David won’t talk to him, won’t even look at him beyond a passing glance, and even those felt like daggers to Patrick’s heart. As a man who is both deathly afraid of confrontation and desperate for control, Patrick feels like he’s hurtling through an intersection without looking both ways. He doesn’t want to provoke David anymore than he has, doesn’t want to fuel a raging flame with a wrong word or misinterpreted intention. He also can’t sit on his hands and wait for the problems to end naturally. He’s sidelined himself before and it only ever made the situation worse. It doesn’t help that Patrick doesn’t understand what, if anything, he’s done wrong. David’s been frustratingly tight-lipped since they received the invitation to the funeral, to the point where sometimes he seems like a different person. 

It’s a weird feeling. Missing someone that’s sitting two feet away.

His hand moves from the steering wheel to adjust the heater. Damn thing hasn’t been working right for a month now, blasting A/C instead at inopportune moments. He’s been meaning to get it checked out, but Bob always has some excuse or another for pushing back the appointment to the following week.

“You know, maybe when we get there, I can get someone to finally take a look at this heater,” Patrick says, turning his head slightly towards the husband in the passenger seat.

David remains uncharacteristically quiet, not acknowledging Patrick’s comment with so much as a glance. His elbow is propped on the armrest, cheek buried in the palm of his hand and eyes gazing out the window like he’d rather be anywhere but here. 

Patrick tries again, a little louder. “David?” 

“Hm?” For the first time since getting in the car, David looks at Patrick. The light in his eyes is dim, a candle near the end of its life. Patrick knows from extensive research that grief can “fade even the brightest colors”. However, the flowery articles and advice columns he’d read weren’t enough to prepare him for the actual confrontation. 

“You think I should have the heater looked at?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure,” David responds with a lack of confidence that suggests he doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to. “Seems...seems like a good idea.” He turns his attention back to the window and the world beyond it. 

Patrick would be lying if he said silence didn’t bother him. He’s never been very good with it, preferring the company of his well-categorized Spotify playlists, or the occasional sports history podcast. The noise helps him forget himself, if only for a little while. He doesn’t have to sit in his own insecurities or build mountains out of molehills of thoughts if he’s zeroed in on the batting averages of the 1993 Blue Jays. The moments in between, the ones that creep in and settle beneath his skin...he doesn’t know what to do with them.

Which is why he seeks absolution in the power button on the C.D. player. The carefully named “Road Trip Tunes” has been his constant companion since his college years, and likely will be until the day he dies. Fingers tap against the wheel in time to the music, a country song that Patrick only vaguely tolerates for its tongue-in-cheek lyrics about Life on the Ranch. It gets repetitive after the second verse. There’s only so many guitar twangs and “I love my horse”s that a man can handle. Yet, Patrick doesn’t turn it off. He’s waiting for David to do that, to wax poetic about the toxic masculinity of modern country music, to criticize Patrick’s taste, to say _something_.

He could ask David how he’s coping, or at the very least, promise to be there for him. Platitudes about the stages of grief are at the forefront of his mind, but he’s afraid to deliver them. How is someone supposed to say “Hey, I’m sorry about the death of your ex-best friend, but just know that I’m here if you need to talk” without falling into the pattern of clichés that David emphatically rejected the first time Patrick tried. “Don’t make me talk about it,” David had requested, and Patrick had no choice but to agree. 

“Fuck!” The word startles Patrick into reality. David starts to squirm in his seat, hands patting his body and digging frantically through his pockets. “ _Fuck._ ”

The answer is obvious, but Patrick expresses his concerns regardless: “Uh, is everything okay?” 

The car beeps unhappily as David unhooks his seatbelt. The belt retracts with a loud snap, leaving him unprotected and _very_ unsafe as he twists his body towards the back of the car, knees sinking into the upholstery and an arm dangling precariously over his seat. Patrick wants to ask what he’s doing, knowing David would never recklessly endanger himself without reason. The answer comes in the form of a leather messenger bag that David yanks over the headrest. The seatbelt warning continues to beep while David resettles into his chair. He flips open the bag to rifle through it with the precision of a drunk brain surgeon trying to beat a world record. Whatever he’s looking for isn’t inside. With a huff, he turns his head towards Patrick. 

“Pull over.” His command is insistent, impatient, but it’s the most emotion he’s presented in several hours. When Patrick is too slow to respond, David tries a gentler, slightly less desperate approach. “Can you just—can you pull over, please?” There’s no point in arguing while flying down a two-lane highway, so Patrick gently presses his foot against the brakes. The car slows to a halt on the shoulder of the road. “Thank you,” David says quietly, pulling on a pair of leather gloves before jerking open the passenger door. 

Patrick sighs and removes the key from the ignition. He digs into the pocket of his coat for the knit gloves mom sent last month, when the frost was settling in for the season, along with the matching blue toque that currently clings to Patrick’s head. He slides the gloves on, pulls the band of the toque down securely over his ears. In the rearview mirror, Patrick can see David frantically opening the trunk, his perfect coif of hair disappearing behind the lid as he bends over to look through its contents. Patrick glances at the driver’s side mirror for a sign of oncoming cars. The road is clear. He climbs out into the cold and shuts the door behind him.

At the sound of Patrick’s boots crunching in the snow, David’s head pokes around the trunk. “We have to turn around.” Patrick occupies the space beside him, laying a delicate hand on the small of David’s back, watching with concern as his husband carefully removes a pile of clothes from an unzipped suitcase in search of...something. He lays the folded clothes on the trunk floor before unzipping the front pocket of the suitcase to shove his hand inside. “I forgot the stupid passports.”

“David—”

“Two hours of driving, and _now_ I remember them.” David huffs and drops his head in defeat.

“We are not going back—”

David spins towards Patrick, his voice high pitched and defensive. Bitter words float from his lips in puffs of visible breaths. “If you have another way to get through the border without being arrested, then by all means.” He crosses his arms. “I don’t know, maybe Alexis would have some id—”

“David, we don’t need to go back and we don’t need to call your sister because the passports are in my bag.” David gives him an incredulous look, brows knit closer than the weave of Patrick’s toque. Patrick slips away to the right side of the car, opening the rear door to grab a backpack from the backseat. “You left them on the kitchen table.” He reaches into the front pocket of his bag. Gold emblems glint in the winter sun when Patrick proudly presents two passports.

“Right,” David murmurs. Uncomfortable. Not reassured, like Patrick had hoped. “Of course I did.”

Patrick zips up the passports and slings the bag around his shoulder. “Hey, it’s a good thing you have me around, otherwise you might’ve had to cross the border in the back of a livestock truck.” A cautious attempt to lighten the mood, but he knows David can’t resist a reference to his sister’s exploits.

And he doesn’t, snatching the bait with a shimmer of confidence, voice ringing clearly over the gentle whistle of the wind. “Mm, I’m told the smell can cling to charmeuse for months.”

Patrick smiles. “A fate worse than death, I’m sure.” 

A car passes them by. David’s gaze follows it, arms still folded around himself. For a fraction of a second, his face flickers with a particular brand of melancholy that Patrick has only seen in moments of self-reflection. Then David looks over, remembers he’s not alone. As quickly as his vulnerability revealed itself, it dissipates in the bitter wind.

“We should...probably get going,” Patrick urges carefully with a pat on his husband’s shoulder. “There’s a lot of ground to cover if we’re gonna make it in time for the funeral.”

At the mention of the word “funeral”, David’s mouth twists into a slight frown. An understandable reaction, all things considered, but Patrick catches himself waiting for something more substantial. Aren’t people supposed to cry when they lose someone? Patrick’s never experienced the death of a loved one before, making it difficult to empathize with the complex feelings that must be cycling through David’s head. What else is he supposed to say here? Another joke? A painfully corny poem about life speeding by like cars on an empty stretch of road? The advice columns he read are proving to be utterly useless.

Barely three months into a long and prosperous marriage, Patrick’s learned to expect the rapid shifts in David’s mood. Yet it still surprises him when David’s voice takes on a teasing lilt. “Didn’t realize you were so eager to get back to your Road Trip Tunes,” he says, stepping towards the passenger door. 

Maybe this banter is how David plans to cope—pointed jokes and self-referential anecdotes to fill the hollow air with something more than pain and heartbreak. And while Patrick has never lost some _one_ the way David has, he at least has experience in losing some _thing_. Thirty-odd years of pretending to be everything but himself had granted him an appreciation for gallows humor. 

“Do I detect a hint of judgement?” Patrick throws out, light and playful because it’s the least he can do. David opens the car door and scrambles inside. Patrick follows suit, dropping the backpack behind the driver’s seat. He stuffs his glove in coat pocket and jams the key into the ignition. The car roars to life. Solemn country music blares from the radio, which David acknowledges with a look of genuine disapproval.

“It’s not so much a _hint_ as it is _open hostility_ ,” he says, “which you invited when you pressed play on a CD— _a CD_ —of legally purchased, early 2000s country music.”

Despite David’s half-hearted protests, Patrick doesn’t turn the music off. Instead, he twists the volume dial until the music is at an acceptable murmur. Operation Use-Country-Music-To-Get-David-Talking has been a resounding success. A minor feeling of accomplishment washes over Patrick as he hits the turn signal, checks the side mirror, and guides the car back onto the long and winding road. 

“How do you know they were legally purchased?” 

“Um? Because I know who I’m talking to?”

“Actually, ‘Somebody Like You’ was ripped directly from Limewire,” Patrick informs him, eyes planted firmly on a horizon of bare cornfields.

“Wow,” David breathes, “they should throw you into a maximum security prison for that heinous behavior. Make you share a cell with someone who forgot to pay his overdue book fees.” 

“Is this before or after the prosecution charges me for throwing plastic in the garbage instead of the recycling?”

David slaps a hand against his mouth to feign bewilderment. “You really are a menace to environmental sustainability.”

“My picture is actually next to the word ‘nefarious’ in the dictionary.” While the banter is enjoyable, Patrick can’t ignore the embers of tension that flash with each cutting remark. The tension is nameless, hard to define, indicative of every emotion at once or no emotion at all. 

“We should get you a leather jacket,” David considers, “To really compliment your nefarious...ness. Nefariousity? Nefar...”

“Depravity,” Patrick offers. 

“How do you feel about having those little appliqué spikes along the shoulder seams?” 

Patrick chuckles. “Sadly, I don’t think there are any leather stores back home. There could be one in Poughkeepsie that we could take a look at, though.”

“Ugh, there aren’t,” David assures him with disgust. His focus returns to the passenger window. “She didn’t even have the decency to die somewhere with a store that carries full-grain leather, like Westchester—it had to be _Poughkeepsie_.” 

“Is...Poughkeepsie that bad?”

“Worse than Westchester,” David tells him, like it’s supposed to mean something more to Patrick than another name for another town he’s never been to. 

Patrick has never met anyone from David’s old life. They exist only as the ghosts that hide behind David’s wistful smiles and passionate anecdotes. Patrick doesn’t claim to be an expert on reading between the stripes of David’s sweaters, but he knows that for every friend with “exquisite taste in artisanal ceramics,” there is a scar that will never heal. The people in David’s past were the kind of people who would let his wounds fester, would tell him that the marks on his skin build character.

Patrick isn’t like that. He could never be like that. 

“I know you don’t wanna talk about it—”

“I don’t,” David interjects, sharp and threatening, like the hiss of a snake right before its venomous bite. 

His husband’s particular brand of animosity is nothing new to Patrick. If all else fails, persistence will direct David’s negativity towards someone other than himself. “You could at least give me some indication that you’re...well not _okay_ , but that you’re at least trying to be?”

“Patrick,” David says. Firm. A final warning. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I worry, David, because that’s what I’m supposed to do in situations like this.” 

“According to who, exactly?”

“Common sense? The deep love and respect I have for you?”

“That’s part of the problem.” David says it quietly, almost like Patrick wasn’t meant to hear it. “Why are we still listening to this?” David punches the button on the radio, the song ending with an abrupt click. Patrick frowns, knuckles turning white against the wheel at the realization that he’s right back to square one. Any crack he made in the wall of David’s grief has been patched with quick-drying cement. Words spin in his head. Part of the problem? What could David possibly mean by that? 

A Honda passes them in the opposite direction. Its bright red color is entirely out of place amidst the dreary winter landscape. Patrick chuckles to himself.

“What’s so funny?” David asks with thinly disguised alarm, no doubt confused at the shift in tone.

“That was a red car.”

David blinks at him. Patrick explains: 

“When I was a kid, my parents would squeeze me and a few of my cousins into the back of a Dodge Caravan that had to have been at least fifteen years old. And then we’d head down to Michigan to meet some relatives that lived near the border. It was a long and boring drive for a bunch of nine-year-olds, so we’d come up with a bunch of games to keep us entertained. Like...whenever we’d see a red car, we’d punch each other.”

The thinly disguised alarm swells into outright horror, David’s dark eyes growing wide in a way that Patrick finds incredibly amusing. “You’d...punch each other...”

“One punch. Not enough to bruise, just enough to feel it.” Horror downgrades into moderate concern, but the expression on David’s face is no less entertaining. His eyebrows alone had the flexibility to snag the Olympic gold in gymnastics. “We were kids,” Patrick reassures him. “Don’t tell me you never did things like that with Alexis.”

David snorts. “We never beat each other senselessly, no. The damage we inflicted on each other in the back of our 1995 Bentley was more psychological. Twenty Questions was _literal_ torture.”

“Then I guess a game of Twenty Questions is out of the equation for us?”

“Only if you want a divorce.”

“Not for another two years,” Patrick deadpans. “But there’s still about four hours left on this trip, so if you have other ideas on how to pass the time...” 

“ _I_ don’t, but the internet might.” David reaches for the phone charging in the cup holder and thumbs through it. “I’m sure there will be thousands of mildly entertaining top ten lists to read about this very situation.”

“I _do_ maintain a lifelong appreciation for mildly entertaining top ten lists.”

“Which is why you’ll be delighted to hear that when Googling ‘things to do on a long car ride,’ the results are heavily skewed in the Top Ten direction. Enough to make a Top Ten Top Ten Lists List, I should think.”

“Let’s hear one of them.”

David clears his throat. “‘Top Ten Ways To Fill Your Time On the Road.’ Number one.” He holds up a finger. “Have a deep conversation. ‘There’s no better time for self-exploration’—hate _that_ word choice—‘than with the world zipping past you and reminding you of how superficial it all is.’”

“Off to a good start.” 

“You should read their suggestions for topics. ‘How do you see God? What is He like? What does happiness mean to _you_?’” 

“This is number _one_ on the list?”

David hums. “Yeah, I don’t think we’re ready for this one. Deep conversations feel more like a number nine thing.”

“Not in the mood for self-exploration, David?”

“Only when you’re busy.”

Patrick snickers. “What’s number two?”

“Number two. Oh, you’ll love number two. ‘Watch a movie.’”

“Wat—while I’m _driving_?” 

“As we all know, the best way to pass the time is to die in a fiery car crash because your husband wanted to watch a documentary about World War Two while speeding down a two lane highway at 140 kilometers an hour.” 

Suddenly aware of the speed of his car, Patrick eases his foot off the pedal to slow it down by a few kilometers. “David, that’s insane. You should know that I wouldn’t risk your life for anything less than a World War Two docu _series_.” 

“You know, I’m reading this list and it’s very child-focused. Which does make sense, considering I found it on _dadsandfads.com_.” 

“That’s not a real website.”

“Fortunately, it is,” David assures him with sheer delight. “And their article of the day is ‘You Wouldn’t _Believe_ the Size of This Dad’s Allen Wrench!’”

“That supposed to be some kind of euphemism?”

“I will give it to this journalist, it’s _very_ large. Look, there’s a picture!” Patrick takes his eyes off the road for only a second, glimpsing a photo of a man holding an Allen wrench the size of his forearm. 

“You know, there’s a joke here to be made about having a large tool,” he comments. “But we're better than that, right?”

David dismisses him with a flippant wave. “Speak for yourself. Number three: catalogue car colors.”

“But don’t punch each other while doing it, right?”

“Hmph. You know I abhor all forms of physical violence but if I’m being forced to maintain a spreadsheet about cars, I’d _want_ someone to punch me out of my misery? Moving on to number four. Now it says we should have a car picnic? But it fails to elaborate any further. And searching for images of ‘car picnics’ just gets me a lot of...open hatchbacks and...children. With unsettling smiles.”

“I’m starting to think this list wasn’t very well thought out.”

“A hypothesis further strengthened with this next entry. ‘Arts and crafts!’”

A hand playfully slaps the wheel as Patrick laments: “ _Knew_ I should’ve brought the model ship kit Dad gave me. What am I supposed to do with myself now?”

“Sing a song?”

“Is that number six?” David nods. “Do you want me to sing you a song, David?”

“Depends on the song.”

“ _I'm the motherflippin' Rhymenocerous. My beats are fat, and the birds are on my back, and I'm hor_ —”

“Do you think this window is large enough to throw myself out of it?” 

“You could try jumping out the door instead? The tuck and roll method is apparently very effective for escaping moving cars.”

“Mm, you say that, but you never had to visit Alexis in a German hospital.” Whatever horrible story David is referring to, Patrick isn’t so sure he wants to know. 

“If it’s the song that bothers you, I could always sing a little Mariah. Or Shania. _Maybe_ some Whitney if I really believe in myself. Your pick.” 

“Um, I don’t think I’m in the right mindset for any of those to be honest.”

“There’s a right mindset for ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much?’” 

“Unfortunately, that song isn’t appropriate for the melancholy atmosphere I’m trying to establish.” It sounds like a joke when David says it, but the words are laced with a truth that’s difficult to overlook.

“So no Shania then,” Patrick decides.

“No Shania,” David confirms with a curt nod. “Number seven. Explore social media.”

“This list is very biased against the driver.”

“That, or it’s actively encouraging distracted driving. But it’s a far better alternative than this next one: ‘Go off road for some fun!’” David’s overly enthusiastic reading coaxes a snicker from Patrick. “Fun! With an exclamation point because they’re just _really_ excited about the damage it’ll do to your 2018 Toyota Corolla.”

“2017,” Patrick corrects. 

“If you ever plan on,” David raises his hand to quote the air, “‘going off-road’, at least have the decency to sign the divorce papers first. Because I could never willingly be with someone who disobeys traffic laws.” 

“No divorce for at least another year.” 

“I thought it was supposed to be two?”

“Removed a year because you hated my song,” Patrick says. “Besides, I thought you _l_ _iked_ bad boys who disobeyed traffic laws.”

David shrugs. “Being woefully enigmatic means my opinions change faster than a Twitter feed. It’s a deeply entrenched character flaw and you should learn to embrace it. Should I move on to number nine?”

“Go for it.”

“Sightsee.” David looks up from his phone, his head twisting from window to window. “Though I’m not sure what sights we’re supposed to be seeing?”

“I don’t know, that tree is kind of interesting,” Patrick observes, pointing out the window in the general direction of the barren forest that has no beginning or end. “Look there’s another one. Another one. Another one. Hey, that’s a different tree from the seventy-two we just passed.”

David crosses his arms and sinks further into his seat. “This conversation is inching into clinical insanity with every passing second.”

“Just read the last one, David.”

“‘Judge other drivers,’” he reads. “Which I was literally _just_ doing, so we can cross that one off.”

“That can’t be the last thing on the list,” Patrick says in disbelief. 

“You think I would lie about this?”

“It’s not so much that I think you’re lying as it is my complete incredulity in the quality of this list. Call it ‘shaken faith.’” Shaken faith with a dash of superiority that comes from knowing he could write a better list in three minutes. But this isn’t the time or place to take the moral high ground against a clickbait article. 

“If anyone’s shaking, it’s me.” David reaches for the dial on the heater, twists it back and forth as though he were cracking a safe. “This cold is unbearable, I don’t know how people stand it.”

“They distract themselves for ten minutes at a time with poorly-written lists,” Patrick complains, and okay. Maybe he’s more annoyed than he initially thought. Ah, well. If he’s going to officially stand on the moral high ground, it might as well be a mountain. 

“Are you really lamenting the sanctity of lists?”

“You won’t let me talk about anything else,” Patrick blurts. A snap judgement. An opportunity for a more direct and blunt approach that won’t pass him by. 

David retaliates with a pointed glare and a “What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

Patrick wishes he could take his eyes off the road to hold David’s gaze, but settles for the occasional glance in between sentences. “I’m just concerned, David. Your ex-best friend died—someone you’ve talked about _e_ _xtensively_ —and you’ve barely said a word about the situation. Every time I try to approach the subject, you shut me out.” 

“Because there’s nothing to talk about!”

Patrick shakes his head. “I don’t believe that for one second.”

A passing beat feels like a lifetime as David stares at the space between them. Every emotion cycles through David until he is left with an expression that Patrick never wants to see again. Cheerless eyes that look and look away. And look and look away. “I just—I can’t, Patrick,” he finally says through broken words, head dropping against the window. “I _literally_ can’t, and that’s...that’s the worst part about all of this.”

“You’re confused?” Patrick asks, softly, in a way he hopes is reassuring.

“Yes. I’m...I’m confused? I’m confused instead of the sad I’m supposed to be, and I don’t know wha—” David stops in his tracks. “That’s a Halloween store.”

Patrick quirks his head towards the Master of Changing Subjects, who is lightly slapping his elbow. “What?”

“Just—look! There’s a _Halloween_ store!”

Patrick peeks out the passenger window and sees an inflatable tube man waving in the winter breeze. A bright orange beacon with a Jack-O-Lantern frown that flails not-so-proudly beside a brick building hidden in a patch of trees. The lonely building is adorned with a large black banner that screams “Halloween Store” in a font that could only be described as “generically spooky.” Patrick would laugh if he wasn’t so confused by the fact that Halloween was almost two months ago.

The road winds left and away. The store disappears in the rearview mirror, but David urges Patrick to turn around. Patrick nearly protests, nearly says that a detour could throw off their arbitrary schedule. Then he sees the light in David’s eye, bright and curious in the way that had once left Patrick breathless behind a desk littered with incorporation documents. He does what David needs him to do. He always will. 

The parking lot is empty. Patrick says as much while he’s pulling the car into a spot near the door and stepping out onto the pavement.

“Um? It’s a _Halloween store._ That’s open in the _middle of December_ ,” David asserts, following Patrick up the sidewalk. “And it’s literally called ‘Halloween Store.’ It’s probably a...front. For an international drug operation. And we’re the innocent bystanders about to be handcuffed and thrown into the back of a windowless van.” 

Just as they’re about to slip through the door decorated with stickers of cobwebs and bats, Patrick stops David with a gloved hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, David, I’ll protect you from any masked men that come our way. Unless they have guns.” Patrick drops his hand. “Then you’re on your own.”

While there aren’t any sentient masked men inside, the store has a few robotic ones on display in the foyer. A clown swings a plastic machete in their direction to the tune of maniacal laughter that might’ve been more terrifying if it didn’t sound like a squeaky balloon. 

“Where the fuck are we?” David blurts. Patrick wonders the same. Did they somehow trip into an interdimensional time portal? 

But it really is just a Halloween store. The wide space is dressed with the classic paraphernalia: walls of bagged costumes, shelves lined with spooky trinkets and boxed decorations, all lit up by strings of clear plastic Jack-O-Lanterns that hang from the ceiling. A single employee is hunched over the counter in the back, flipping through a teen magazine dated from the 1980s, judging by the young Michael J. Fox on the current page.

The interdimensional time portal theory is gaining traction.

Still, if there ever was a place to satisfy Patrick’s natural curiosity, it’d have to be this one. David is the same way. He drifts to a wall plastered from end to end with lawn decorations, unable to resist the call of the void. In this case, the void had _many_ buttons, and David just can’t keep his hands to himself. He presses a button here, triggers a spooky effect there, and a chain of canned screams and creepy laughter follows his every step. A life-sized coffin creaks open. The corpse of a bride peeks out to question David about her lost love. David meets her plastic stare with a disapproving scowl. The aisle that attracts Patrick’s attention is stacked with themed knick-knacks. The kind that mom would always stash in random crevices around his childhood home. Yellow and orange ceramic pumpkins, a snowglobe that Patrick can’t resist shaking just to see glittery bats swarm the stone castle inside, a mug or two or thirty, one of which he shows to David as he comes up to tickle Patrick’s shoulder.

David looks at it. “Why does the skeleton have a leather jacket?”

“Because he’s,” Patrick’s finger follows the text sprawled underneath the black and white cartoon, “‘Dad to the Bone.’” With an exasperated groan, David turns away from Patrick’s grin to continue down the aisle.

“The leather thing is starting to—” David’s sentence is interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream. He whirls around. On the shelf beside him, a bust of a witch is lit up, a spider hanging from her hooked nose by a thin wire. “Oh my _g_ _od_.” 

The scream loops and loops and loops and loops and— 

“I think it’s stuck,” Patrick proclaims. He picks up the decoration and searches for an apparently invisible off-switch. Defeated, he passes the witch to David, who makes an annoyed face while slapping the bottom of the bust. Much to Patrick’s grateful surprise, the scream stops. 

“Can’t believe that worked,” David says in disbelief. “Are your ears also ringing?”

“A little.” 

The next aisle houses several foam heads that proudly display an assortment of silicon masks and headpieces. Patrick notices the zombie mask first, pokes the fake blood on its pale, wrinkled cheek just because the texture seemed fun to touch. He plucks the mask from its form to stare the zombie in its soulless eyes.

“ _Don’t_ put that on your head,” David pleads, as though he were reading Patrick’s thoughts. Patrick gives him a look. “It’s not even _remotely_ sanitary—you could be breathing in the air particles of a million different diseases.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s how diseases work, David.” Admittedly, David’s exaggeration has a kernel of truth to it, so Patrick puts the mask back on the foam head and directs his attention to the Roman helmet standing beside it. The helmet is solid gold with a plume of red feathers stretching from the scalp to the back of the neck. Patrick taps the cheap foam with his knuckle, briefly questions if the costume piece is historically accurate. Whatever the answer, it doesn’t prevent him from removing his toque to slide the helmet over his tousled hair. 

David tosses him a judgmental glare. “If you get lice, you’re not sleeping in a bed with me for at least three months.” 

“That would be worth writing a tragedy about.” 

“It was the Greeks who wrote the tragedies. Not the Romans.”

“I’m sure the Romans wrote _some_ tragedies.”

“I...actually, I don’t know,” David reluctantly admits. 

Patrick knocks his fist against the helmet to demonstrate its protective value. David rolls his eyes and turns to study a shelf of witch hats. A flash of orange fabric draws Patrick’s attention to the end of the aisle, where an eccentric collection of sea creatures hang on hooks protruding from the wall. An iridescent crab rises above them all, round white eyes poking from its shell to render judgement upon the world.

“Here you go, David.” Patrick plucks the hat from its hook and inspects it closely. Six stiff legs jut out from the side of the shell, the front of the brim adorned with two long claws that curve towards each other. He holds it out for David to acknowledge with abject disdain. “The color compliments your complexion.”

“Don’t even _think_ about i—don’t!” David objects when Patrick approaches his perfectly coiffed hair with the hat in tow. “If you come near me with that thing, I’m suing you for emotional harassment!” Despite David’s loud protests and emphatic hand waving, he doesn’t move away or block Patrick’s advance. Instead, David crosses his arms and pouts in his very melodramatically David way as Patrick lowers the crab onto his head. 

“Don’t be so crabby, David,” Patrick says with as much sobriety as he can muster. Which isn’t much. The sight of his fashionable husband wearing a god-awful crab puppet on his head absolutely warrants a stifled giggle or two. 

“Just so you know,” the crab says darkly, “in the divorce proceedings? I’m filing this moment under ‘proof of cruelty.’”

The claws hang from David’s temples, perfectly framing his narrowed eyes. Patrick brushes a claw aside to kiss David on the cheek. “Whatever you say, my darling husband, who I love and treasure.” 

The drop in David’s expression is so subtle that Patrick nearly misses it. “You look ridiculous,” David mumbles, low and unsure. 

Patrick consoles him with a grin and a light squeeze of the arm. “No more than you,” he says.

It’s evident that David is wrestling with an internal dilemma as he shifts from one leg to the other. So Patrick gives him an out, fishing his cellphone from his jacket pocket and waving it in the air. “Now smile,” he orders, “I need blackmail material.”

“ _No_ ,” David asserts. “ _A_ _bsolutely_ not!”

“What about one of us?”

David sputters before deciding: “Fine! But if this ends up in one of Ray’s Photoshop portfolios, ‘crabby’ will be the _smallest_ word for what I’ll be.”

Patrick wraps his arm around David and pulls him as close as their outlandish hats allow. He holds out the phone in front of them. “Say ‘Bone Daddy!’”

“I won’t be doing that.”

Patrick takes the picture.

In the photo, a Roman soldier kisses the cheek of an indifferent crab, eyes closed in perfect content. The crab is looking off to the side, his kissed cheek scrunched up. The smirk that hides in his lips threatens to break into uncontrollable laughter. Strings of plastic Jack-O-Lanterns hang above them, enveloping the couple in an ethereal orange glow. 

When David looks at it, he looks in curiosity. Then amusement. Then disbelief. Then...shame? His eyes water as he shifts from one leg to the other.

“If you’re that worried about how you look, I can delete it,” Patrick offers.

“No, don’t do that,” David urges softly. He looks away from the photo. “It’s, um...it’s a nice picture.”

“So then, what’s the matter?”

David looks at him. “You just—you look really happy.”

“Because I am.”

“And that’s what’s so—that’s frustrating to me. We’re driving to a funeral. And you’re happy.”

Patrick points at the photo. At the background of blood and gore and death. And in the foreground of it all, the two of them lost in each other. “You’re smiling too.”

If Patrick had been a philosopher on the intricacies of human emotion, or if he had been a poet with a windows-to-the-soul outlook on life, he doubts even then that he’d be able to interpret the turbulent expression on David’s face. Soft but rigid. Elated but miserable. Every emotion at once and no emotion at all. 

Patrick reaches out but David turns away, pulls the crab from his head and runs his fingers through his hair. “They’ve gotta have candy around here somewhere” he says quietly, and then he’s silent as the two of them stroll through shelves of sweets.

When they finally make their purchases after a half-hour, it’s obvious that the cashier would rather be anywhere else. She scans their product and wishes them a monotone good day as she slaps a black plastic bag on the counter. Patrick throws her a thanks and guides David out the door. 

“Is it alright if I drive?” David asks while Patrick loads the shopping bag into the backseat. 

Patrick looks at him. “Are you sure?” David nods, opening the door to slide behind the wheel. When David guides the car to the road, the Halloween store disappears in the rearview mirror, gone in an instant, like it had never been there at all.

\- - -

Boredom spans miles of uninteresting landscape, soundtracked by the hum of tires on the road and the occasional click of the heater. Patrick pretends to be interested in his phone, pokes at a Solitaire game just to give his hands something to do while he watches David from the corner of his eye. 

Eventually David’s notices. “‘Kay, can you stop with that?”

“Stop...?”

“That! That...expression on your face. You’ve had it since we left the house,” David points out bitterly, eyes darting to Patrick’s face and back to the road. “You’re waiting for me to fall apart, to...to _break_. I’m capable of composure!”

Patrick wants to laugh, but that would be a tad too insensitive. “Since when?” he says instead, because he genuinely wants to know how David considers himself a paragon of emotional stability when they _both_ know otherwise.

“Um? Since forever?”

“David, you once burst into tears because they didn’t have Eat-Mores at Northpoint.”

“ _What_ kind of movie theatre only has Smarties? They taste like a blurry JPEG of an M&M.”

Patrick barrels through. “All I’m saying is that this is one situation where you don’t _have_ to be composed.”

“So what, instead, I’m supposed to just...break out the hysterics? Because that would be the _right_ way to react to the death of someone I didn’t even fucking like?”

“You’re—”

David’s voice raises an octave. “I said I didn’t want to talk about this! That I _needed_ to not talk about it. And here you are, with your arms wide open, ready to catch me before I’ve even jumped off the cliff. And you’re _happy_ to do it. _Why?_ ”

“You shouldn’t _have_ to be alone, David. And I don’t know why you keep trying to convince yourself otherwise.”

David turns his head to look Patrick in the eye. “Because I don’t dese—”

Patrick points out the window to a rapidly approaching patch of ice. “Watch the—!”

In a fit of panic, David slams on the brakes, but it only makes the situation worse as the car begins to spin out. “Fuck!” He twists the wheel in the opposite direction in an attempt to overcorrect, and Patrick doesn’t have the time to dissuade him before the car veers headfirst into a shallow ditch.

The first thing Patrick does when the car lurches to an abrupt stop is reach out for David’s shivering arm. The second thing is a quick assessment of their situation. The edge of a barren field blanketed in snow cradles the car’s front bumper, the tires burrowed into an incline.

Relief is Patrick’s strongest reaction, casting aside the growing doubt that his car survived the ordeal unscathed. “Thank god there wasn’t a tree for us to hit. You alright?”

David’s hands are glued to the wheel, short breaths rising and falling in his chest. “Barely.” 

Patrick releases his grip on David’s arm. “We really need to talk about what to when you hydroplane, because that was definitely not it.”

His husband explodes. “Well, I’m fucking sorry that I fucking drove your fucking car into a fucking ditch! Fuck!”

“Whoa, hey.” Pulling one of David’s hands into his, Patrick holds his panicked gaze and squeezes. “We’re both okay.”

“ _Physically_ okay, maybe! But that was. _The_ most harrowing experience of my life, and I was once stuck for five and a half hours in a freight elevator with half the cast of _Glee_!” 

“David—”

“The _bad_ half, Patrick!”

“David, breathe. Slowly. Yep. Exactly like that.”

“Fuck,” David reiterates, with more purpose as he regains control of his emotions, freeing the hand on the wheel to pluck lint from his woolen lapel. 

When Patrick detaches himself from David, he looks out the windshield. “Uh...can you _try_ backing out...?” He says it with a lack of confidence, flashes of past experiences with cars in ditches running through his thoughts. Backing out of a ditch with tires buried in a foot of snow will be impossible, but David makes a hesitant attempt, throwing the car in reverse and pressing his foot against the accelerator. The engine roars, the tires spin, but the car remains stagnant and defiant. The second attempt is just as futile.

Which is a long winded way of saying that they’re stuck. They’re very stuck. But Patrick and his stubborn ways refuse to admit defeat so easily. A willingness to exhaust every possible solution was a learned trait from his father, who didn’t let Patrick near a driver’s license without first imparting the wisdom of emergency preparedness. 

“Hang on. Gotta use the cat litter.” Patrick unhooks his seatbelt. “Turn on the emergency flashers and stay inside. Wait ‘til I tell you to hit the gas.” 

“Cat litter?”

“Winter Preparedness Tip #4,” Patrick says in a terrifyingly easy impersonation of his father. “Keep a tub of cat litter in the trunk for extra traction in the snow.” 

“ _T_ _hat’s_ why that’s in the trunk? I thought it was left over from when you housesat for your parents.”

“Uh, my parents don’t have a cat? And even if they did, why would they ask _me_ to look after it?”

“They don’t have a cat?” David’s voice falls into a low murmur. “Why did I think they had a cat?” 

Patrick climbs out of the car, mindful of the small drop as his boots plant themselves in the snow. The air seems colder now, the late afternoon sun haloed behind a veil of thick clouds. He clambers up the hill to pop the trunk, reaches for the jug of cat litter stashed behind the suitcases, along with a compact shovel that David once argued would never come in handy. After some time and considerable effort digging holes around each tire, he pours thin layers of litter underneath the treads and taps the side of the car to signal the driver. The car gains a little traction when it accelerates, but it isn’t enough to break free. So Patrick tries again, exhausts all possible solutions just like he was taught, digging deeper holes and spreading more litter, only to be rewarded with inches of progress and frostbitten lips. 

“I guess we’re calling CAA,” Patrick heaves, climbing back into the car and slamming the door. The thin layer of snow clinging to the front of his jeans melts in the heated interior, leaving behind patches of uncomfortably wet spots on his legs.

“Well...how long is that gonna take?”

Between one to three hours, according to the dispatcher on the other end of the phone. She apologizes for the wait time, citing yesterday’s storm for the sheer volume of calls to roadside assistance within the last twelve hours. Cold, wet, and a little irritated, Patrick calmly relays the details of their location and hangs up. 

At Patrick’s insistence, David removes the key from the ignition to conserve the little gas they have left. Cold air creeps across Patrick’s exposed skin, prompting him to sift through the glove compartment until he finds the packaged thermal blanket obscured by a stack of fast food napkins. 

“Should we canoodle in the backseat?” Patrick suggests with a raised eyebrow, holding out the bag to show a trembling David the photographed couple huddled together underneath silver fabric. “It’s either that or freeze to death.”

“You’re such a romantic,” David replies as Patrick clumsily squeezes through the gap between the seats. Under David’s unsubtle leering, he lands in the upholstery, tears the plastic bag open and unfolds the shiny fabric to wrap it around himself. One waggle of the eyebrows and a promise to be a perfect gentleman later, and David is in the space beside Patrick, their legs entwined in a way that might have been alluring if Patrick wasn’t preoccupied with the threat of hypothermia. Still, the warmth they share is pleasant and it isn’t long until teeth stop clattering and Patrick regains the feeling in his face.

David speaks up. “You know, I always knew I was destined to die on the side of a highway?”

“You told me that you wanted to die in a bed at the delicate age of a hundred and one, surrounded by black and white photos of your accomplishments.”

“That was just—that was my best case scenario, I stole that idea from _Titanic._ This situation is definitely more in line with the worst case.”

“The _absolute_ worst case being...?” 

“Less of you. More crying infants.” 

“Glad you find my presence more tolerable than a baby’s.”

“Only marginally.” 

“Ouch.” 

“You can be annoyingly stubborn sometimes.”

 _"Me?_ ”

David breathes. Closes his eyes. Then opens them. “Sometimes you don’t listen when I ask you to leave me alone. Like when I told you to stay behind and watch the store, and you turned around and asked Stevie to do it so we could drive to the funeral together. You didn’t even let me book a flight.”

“Last-minute plane tickets at this time of year are expensive.”

“That was _my_ decision to make. Not yours. Instead, we’re freezing to death. On the side of a highway. In a ditch. Because we’re going to the funeral of someone you’ve never even met, where you’ll no doubt be subjected to a thousand passive aggressive comments from people who think they know everything about me. Also, I’m hungry, which is really the worst part about all of this.”

“Yeah, okay, this is definitely a less than ideal situation, but I didn’t come along for the ride because I thought it would be a fun adventure, David. Like it or not, we’re _married_. As much as that means arguing over top ten lists or taking pictures in stupid hats, it also means driving each other to funerals and getting stuck in ditches.”

“While I knew that going into this, it’s...it’s different having to actually _experience_ it. I keep expecting you to turn around and say that this,” David gestures to himself, “is more than you signed up for.” 

“Never gonna happen.” 

“Mm. Not for another year, at least.”

“Five years.”

“Three and a half.”

“Four years and three months. You get to keep the house.”

“Deal,” David says with a self-contained smirk.

“Can I ask you a difficult question?”

“Why not?”

“Earlier, you said you didn’t like her.” 

“It...feels like we only tolerated each other because no one else would. Attached ourselves to the same superficial traits because we thought it would manifest some sort of...deeper connection.”

“And you still want to go to the funeral because...?”

“Obligation,” is all David is willing to give, but the answer is enough. Whether David’s sense of obligation is to himself or to a woman he knew a long time ago doesn’t matter to Patrick in the end. He’ll follow wherever David goes. 

There’s a darkness to David that Patrick doesn’t think he’ll ever be allowed to see. A long and complicated history, orated through carefully chosen words and inscrutable expressions that barely scratch the surface of the pain David endured at the hands of others. Broken pieces of himself scattered across the floor, swept under a handwoven Persian rug that he swears is the most important piece of a room’s decor. 

Yet every now and then, in moments just like this one, David will find the courage to extract a piece from under the rug, show it to Patrick, and say “this is me.” And Patrick will close a fist around its jagged edges to hold it against his beating heart.

“Guess we can finally cross off number one on the things-to-do list,” he says, tentative, but hopeful that David will appreciate the jest.

David does more than appreciate it. He _laughs_. It’s not a hearty laugh that comes from somewhere deep, nor is it a light, playful laugh that rings in the air. It falls somewhere in the middle, quiet and warm, relief flowing through like water in a thawing creek. It’s the sweetest sound Patrick thinks he’s ever heard. 

They don’t talk about David anymore after that. They don’t need to. Instead, they help themselves to the Halloween candy in the black shopping bag at Patrick’s feet. Stale gummy vampire fangs may not constitute actual food, but it’s dangerously close to dinnertime and it’s all they have. In between bites, David shows off a package of the bloodshot googly eyes he bought with the express purpose of slapping them on random surfaces around Stevie’s apartment. He takes a pair of eyes from the package, removes their paper backing, and sticks them on the band of Patrick’s toque.

When the vampire fangs run out, they move on to a roll of Starbursts, dividing the flavors equally so that David doesn’t hog the yellow pieces like he always does. They butt heads over whether or not Christmas candy is better than Halloween. Patrick takes the side of candy canes and peppermint bark. David trends toward the mini chocolate bars. The only thing they seem to agree on is their hatred for candy corn. A tow truck pulls up on the side of the road. A woman taps on the windshield and peeks inside to ask if they need help with their car. 

She’s a very nice woman. _So_ nice that after her truck pulls their car from the ditch, free of charge, she offers her babysitting services. An offer David and Patrick are forced to politely decline by telling her that not only do they live three hours away, they do not, in fact, have children. The sun is setting by the time her truck rolls away. Hues of reds and purples dance together in the pristine field of snow.

They still have hours of driving ahead of them. Patrick knows that David gets paranoid about driving at night, especially in the winter, so he suggests that they find a motel. 

David balks at the idea: “I’d rather sleep at the Halloween store.”

An hour later, the car is parked in front of the Good Winter Motel and Patrick has been handed the keys to room nine. Suitcases trail behind them as they step into the room and hang their coats on the wall. 

“See, David, it’s not so bad,” Patrick affirms after a quick survey of his surroundings. He unties his boots and leaves them on a small mat beside the door. “Just like old times.” 

Casting a disparaging look around the room, David stops his advance towards the dresser at the end of the bed. “Mhm. Sure. If...‘old times’ had an...” His hand moves to caress the pointed hat of a benevolent porcelain figurine. “An _unconscionable_ number of gnomes.”

Patrick starts to laugh, throwing his suitcase on top of the mattress and unzipping it under the watchful eye of a plush garden gnome braced against the white lace pillows. “I’m glad you commented on that because I feel like I’m going crazy.”

“How could I not—there’s clusters of _little men_ everywhere.” David gestures purposefully to the décor around the room. “How do we keep finding these weird places? Where will we end up next, a Victor Hugo themed casino?”

When they’ve both staked their claim on the room, the question of what to do for dinner arises. One phone call to a pizza parlor and an unbearable thirty-three minutes later, they’re sitting at the table underneath the window, laughing through bites of pepperoni that Patrick swears must be actual cardboard. Eventually, David excuses himself towards the bathroom, citing his fears that the emotional day has wreaked havoc on his pores. The logic isn’t sound, but Patrick won’t question it. Just like he doesn’t question why David’s nightly routine takes twice as long as normal. 

The bedspread, for all its frilly lace and gnomish appliqué, is surprisingly comfortable when a freshly pajama’d Patrick flops into it, texting a quick update to his parents. He sends Stevie a message asking if the store’s been reduced to a pile of ashes yet. A charming middle finger emoji pops up on the screen and he smiles. The bathroom door opens with a click. David silently traverses the carpet to slip underneath the covers, tossing and turning until his back is towards Patrick and his arm is pinned beneath his cheek. Setting his phone aside, Patrick clicks off the table lamp and kisses David’s temple in the darkness. 

He’s half-asleep when David speaks. Quiet. Almost like Patrick isn’t meant to hear it. “Sometimes I don’t feel worthy of you.”

“You are,” Patrick murmurs in his ear, draping an arm around David’s quivering shoulders. “You always have been.” 

Patrick pulls him closer, holding David against his heart.

**\- - -**

Sunlight streaming through open blinds casts inviting shadows across the floor when Patrick wakes up, an arm dangling precariously over the mattress. Curled in a wooden chair beside the window, David is lost in thought, fingers tracing aimless patterns in the frosted glass. 

“Mornin’ sunshine,” Patrick says, sleep-addled voice crackling as he scoots himself towards the headboard. David greets him with a tight smile. 

“Hi.” He waves a hand towards the window. “Snowed last night.”

It’s difficult to guess how long David’s been awake, if he ever fell asleep at all; he’s already dressed in full black, hair meticulously coiffed. 

“What time is it?” Patrick questions, rubbing his palms against his eyes. 

“Almost nine.”

“Really? Why didn’t you wake me up?”

David contemplates his answer for a moment before deciding. “Didn’t have the heart.”

Patrick peels himself off the mattress. “Well, if we skip breakfast and leave now, we can still make it in time.”

“To be honest, I just…” David clears his throat. “I’d rather get breakfast.”

Patrick stands still for a pensive second. “You’re sure?” 

David points to the half-empty pizza box sitting on the table. “It’s just as disappointing cold. And you know me, if I don’t eat a well-rounded breakfast, I’ll complain about it for a week.”

That’s how they find themselves in the booth of a mom-and-pop bakery at the edge of a town that reminds Patrick of Schitt’s Creek. It feels like home too, sitting across from David as he prattles on about the woes of working retail during the Christmas season, the latte in his hand nearly splashing over the rim of his mug with every wild gesticulation. The world spins around them like it always does, the café bustling with a dozen lives that will only ever exist to Patrick in this specific moment. 

It’s a very good moment. 

Patrick takes a sip of his tea. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to **[ERROR 404: USERNAME NOT FOUND]** and **[ERROR 404: USERNAME NOT FOUND]** for whacking me on the head whenever I cried about how stupid it is to have writing as a hobby. Necessary violence aside, they were really good betas. 
> 
> For your entertainment purposes: [the crab hat.](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2569/7536/products/7283174841a736e01573dc391a739f7b.jpg?v=1569008977) Imagine having a serious conversation while wearing that.
> 
> Thanks for reading. <3.


End file.
